


longing becomes its own object

by sepulcher



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Fluff, Pining, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepulcher/pseuds/sepulcher
Summary: The display cases were mocking her. Display cases seemed to enjoy mocking her, these days.Or: Yasha and the quest for a favor worthy of Beau.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 17
Kudos: 207





	longing becomes its own object

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i started writing this so long ago that it might pre-date the initial poem scene by quite a bit, and this doesn't necessarily follow canon to the letter (as evidenced by the premise itself) but it's mostly there. this is not beta—read, so it's probably littered with grammatical errors.
> 
> regardless, i just love a pair of lesbians and they're so in love with each other and was so happy i cried during their date.

Yasha had no idea when she had began looking for courting gifts for Beau.

It started as an accident. Really.

She wasn’t even aware that she was looking for something to give, less to express or convey her feelings and more because she simply wanted to give Beau things, until the embarrassing truth of it reared its head as they were shopping in Nicodranas, before the Peace Talks. Clearly, that was the perfect timing to be distracted by such a thing, both the action of looking and the startling realization that she was _looking_.

Not so far from the Fish Market, she spotted it: a lovely golden earring with a glimmering stone of jade and, unbidden, imagined Beau wearing it. How it would compliment her, and perhaps she would give Yasha that gently surprised look with widened eyes and raised brows, if she gave it to her.

The compulsion had been bold and daring, vivid in her mind’s eye, and she had nearly stopped to purchase it before realizing how _absurd_ the idea was.

“Did something catch your eye, Yasha?” Fjord said, glancing back at her. Beau was several paces ahead, as she always was, and stopped in response, glancing back at her.

“No,” Yasha said far too quickly, feeling her ears begin to heat as she determinedly walked away from the storefront. Thankfully, the pair had accepted her odd behavior and started to talk again, leaving her to agonize, oh so privately, to herself. Irrationally, yet irrevocably, terrified that either of them had gleaned something from her, anything at all. Yet, as the day went on, she found the knot of anxiety in her chest steadily unraveling.

* * *

It got worse from there. As things do.

The display cases were mocking her. Display cases seemed to enjoy mocking her, these days. Glimmering in the shop, catching the light just so, shiny knick knacks sitting there quite innocently, yet still they were mocking her. A pendant, a bracelet, a hair pin: pretty things, almost delicate things, entirely wrong but… _pretty_. It frustrated her.

Yasha was accustomed to frustration, less accustomed to the hesitancy which came with shopping and potential buyer’s remorse.

One of the hair pieces had a gorgeous gem inlaid into the gilded metal. She could feel her shoulders begin to hunch.

“Yasha,” Jester’s voice was distinct and clear, resonating through the air with the gentle sing—song that she often seemed to embody, and Yasha couldn’t help but start. Gods, if the children she had grown up with in the clan could see her now, skittish at the appearance of someone across from her at the other side of the display case, they would laugh themselves ill. “What’re you looking at?”

“Nothing,” she said immediately, embarrassment clawing at her throat as she straightened and stepped away from the display cases hastily. “We should, uh,” _go_ , her mind supplied, but her mouth couldn’t form the word.

“Oh, _Yasha_ , these are so beautiful!” there was no way to describe that tone other than gushing, almost swooning, and Yasha wanted to disappear into the ground. “That one would look so pretty in your hair,” Jester was pointing at a different hair piece from the one she had been looking at a moment ago. It was silver and floral and inset with blue gems and, indeed, very beautiful.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said, glancing around as if someone could save her from this fate, and summarily decided that Beauregard was the last person who could.

“Jes is right, it would look good in your hair,” Beau said as she leaned around Yasha to look at the display case, not quite touching her but a mere hair’s breadth away from doing so and Yasha glanced briefly at the ceiling, not exactly calling to the Stormlord, but but was very much a near thing.

“It’s, ah,” she wanted to step away but with Beau being _right there_ she couldn’t manage it without touching her and. Well. “It’s a bit too… delicate, I think.”

“You think so?” Beau said, head turning so that their gazes met, and there was that familiar—unfamiliar intensity in her eyes, stunning and almost terrifying. “Nah, it looks like it’s a good make. And it’s beautiful,” Yasha, somewhat helplessly, thinks of when Beau had told her, in that same intent tone, that she was beautiful.

“I —— no, I don’t think I should,” Yasha didn’t look away until she heard Fjord, near the front of the shop, and stepped away from Beau. “There are more useful things to spend money on,” that wasn’t really an explanation, but she headed back towards the front of the store all the same, head ducking slightly. She felt awkward and overexposed, and while she had not lied she felt as though she had been caught in a lie.

Looking at the case had been a passing folly, one that she had given into because she had the time to, she supposed, and the light had caught her eye just so. She wouldn’t have actually purchased anything from it, both because there _was_ better things to spend her money on, and because the impulse hadn’t been to buy something for herself at all.

She had thought, for a hurried and almost furtive moment, that the hair piece, meant to go at the base of tied hair, a pretty loop with a pretty gem, would have looked lovely on Beau.

It was silly and ridiculous and absurd and she had been caught in the act all the same and when she joined Fjord and Caleb at the front of the store, she wanted to stare at the ground and at nothing else at all. Not out of shame, no. Never out of shame.

“Find anything good?” Caleb asked, eyebrows raised.

Yasha shook her head with a half—aborted shrug, an odd movement.

They stood there waiting for a few minutes, which Fjord and Caleb filled with casual conversation regarding Caleb’s experience growing up in Rexxentrum. Jester appeared soon after telling them that she had promised Caduceus that they would meet him down the block, ushering them away from the small store on the crowded and raucous street.

Beau’s absence was acute, and Yasha glanced over her shoulder, seeking her out in the crowd as the other three began to peel away. She opened her mouth to object, but stopped when Jester hooked her finger into Yasha’s bracer and began to lead her down the street. Beau likely had other things to tend to, after all, perhaps research to get to.

Yasha felt like asking would be too much, somehow. As though the mere act of inquiring would flay muscle from bone.

* * *

The idea of courting was a bit silly. Frivolous, even. Almost entirely foreign to her. In her clan there was no courting, there were simply matches for mating and subsequent marriages to optimize on fertility and ableness to maintain fighting form for as long as feasibly possible. Romance wasn’t part of the equation, it wasn’t practical to spend time nor resources on such things, and Yasha had little issue with that. She hadn’t known any other way.

Zuala hadn’t had much issue with that, either. She had never spoken of it, at least, never wanted for gifts or tokens of affection. Though, Yasha at times wondered if where Zuala had grown up, outside of the Dolorav Tribe, part of another society with other laws and leadership and ways of their own, lended itself to how determinedly Zuala conducted herself in regards to their own relationship.

It certainly lead Zuala to pursuing her, that much Yasha is certain of. She was unlike those who were born and raised within the tribe. Her laughter carried, a sweet noise unlike anything that Yasha could compare it to. She had come to the tribe as a girl, not quite child and not quite adult, a lostling that was taken into the fold. Many members of the tribe arrived so suddenly, at times bloody and beaten, at times whole and hale and looking for poof of some sort, at times running and terrified. Zuala was none of those. She had simply appeared, one day, wandering and small, utterly without fanfare, hair cut close to her skull, patchy in places, longer in others.

Her voice was like a downpour, her gaze like the sun. She had learned the ways of their tribe easily enough, determined in her training, sneering at the way which her hands bled and calloused and bled again on the weapons that she wielded. But Yasha could remember, still, the way which her brow furrowed and her mouth pinched during the Marking, though she undertook it still.

It was the same look that Zuala had given her before kissing her for the first time, secretive and hard. It was the same look that Zuala had given her before telling her, in no uncertain terms, that she was in love with her. It was the same look that Zuala had given her before telling her that she wanted to marry her, never mind the Marking and the vow of chastity that they undertook, never mind that they would be betraying the Skyspear and the foundations of their tribe. It was the same look that Zuala had given her in the moments after they were discovered before she told Yasha to ——

That look had been something like determination intermingled with something that Yasha had never been able to name. Or, maybe she had been too afraid to.

The concept of _courting_ was foreign to her until Molly began to regale her with elaborate and gradiose tales of heroes and adventures and the highest form of romance, according to his own standards. He had always liked talking, and it seemed to be his method of getting her to warm up to him. Yasha had been prickly when she came upon the circus, distance and stalwart, practically a wall and little else. She had joined on because there was no other place for her to go, and while the Stormlord had given her something like _purpose_ , she was still grappling at herself, at the black hair that had started to grow at some point that she couldn’t determine. Couldn’t remember. At the odd chill that had settled into her bones. At the grief that threatened to swallow her whole.

None of the circus, save Gustav, hear her speak a word for weeks after she joined on. Molly took that as a challenge, or so it seemed, and spent a great deal of his freetime in her presence, speaking at length about anything and everything that came to his mind. It was both fascinating and strange, and she found herself reluctantly drawn to him, enjoying the vibrant energy which he gave off and the lilt of his voice.

“He gave her… gifts?” was the first thing that she said to him the day that they crossed the border into the Empire and she had found herself nearly overwhelmed by the sight of greenery, at the way grass felt brushing against her ankles. Molly had been telling her a story about a lowly page who had fallen in love with a beautiful princess, who could not return his affections but love him passionately in secret, accepting each of the things that he procured to win her attention, and the way that sunlight fell through the leaves and the smell of a nearby forest overwhelmed her.

In that moment, Molly’s eyes had widened and his mouth had parted for the barest moment, before he barreled onward, taking it in stride, “Of course! What better way is there to win a maiden’s love than by courting her?”

“Courting?” she felt seen, and therefore terrified.

“Courting, wooing, seducing,” Molly waved a hand airily, always in motion, turning in a graceful twisting motion so that he was walking backwards in front of her, his scars more prominent in direct sunlight, “whatever it is you call trying to attract a _mate_.”

“I,” Yasha was aware that she could stop talking at any given moment and Molly would take that in stride, as well, if she had learned anything at all about him in the past few weeks, though she was certain that she hadn’t learned much at all about him, other than his penchant for dramatics, “am unfamiliar.”

“With courting? Or attracting a mate?” a sly, bemused smile pulled at his mouth and she could see one of his fangs, and felt irrationally embarrassed.

“No with —— _courting_.”

“A person has never tried to give you a present? A favour? Or a flower?”

“No,” the men of the tribe certainly sized her up and many probably thought her to be an ideal mate, but none had come bearing gifts or anything of the like, and nor had Zuala.

“Well then,” Molly stooped suddenly and pulled something from the grass beside the road that they were making their way down, and he presented his find to her with a flourish and a bow, “I am ecstatic and honored to be the first to give you a flower, dear Yasha.”

She came up short, surprised and caught off guard. He was holding something small and soft looking and yellow, which she could only presume to be a flower. There had been flowers in Xhorhas, but they had been different than this, and rare to boot, nothing that she had ever paid much mind to. But here, she took the flower into her hands with far more care than it necessarily warranted and said, ever so quietly, “Thank you.”

He had seemed surprised again, before hiding it well, bumping his shoulder against her as they continued walking and he kept on with his grand tale.

Yasha had kept the flower. Molly kept giving her them and later a book to keep them in, and when she told him about Zuala some months later he had given her a fathomless look that shattered into something almost bereaved when she told him he wanted to give these flowers to her deceased wife.

He gave her a four leaf clover, the next day. She never told him that she watched him looking for one for ages, from inside one of the caravans.

When it came to Beau, Yasha didn’t want to give her flowers. She didn’t know what she wanted to give her, except that ideas came to her as she saw them: a dagger, a bracelet, a lovely staff, a book of history, little things that made her think of Beau in some way. She didn’t know when this desire to give her gifts started —— she didn’t know when the desire to _court her_ started.

It hadn’t been when she realized she was attracted to Beau. That had been immediate. Beau was both beautiful and handsome and had a striking face, bright eyes, a lithe musculature that Yasha could appreciate objectively. The guilt had been as immediate as her attraction. She wasn’t entirely certain of how long ago she had fled, she had lost time before awaking at a temple of the Stormlord and could only begin to track it by how much black had appeared on the crown of her head, but still. Still, there was Zuala, cold in the ground.

Yasha wasn’t unfamiliar with objective attraction to women, nor was she unfamiliar with that guilt by now, the year she had spent with the circus had made that impossible, and thus she could repress it. She did, quite successfully.

But Beau had taken her by surprise.

Her fierceness, her intelligence, her strength, her love. She was fascinating to watch, in battle and out, the clarity behind her words something to behold. Yasha was drawn to it and, this, afraid of it —— running, always running, always fearful. Not simply from _this_ , but from all of them. The comfort that they offered, the understanding. She told Jester and Caduceus about Zuala. Beau told her about Tori. Yasha told her that she had seen her. Had seen her a lot.

After the Chantry of the Dawn —— maybe then, she had wanted to start to give her things. Maybe. Yasha had wanted to apologize and felt that her words were worthless and actions weak and mabe, maybe, a token would suffice. Something to express the devastation, guilt, and fury that she had felt standing over Beau’s body. The tears that she shed in grief.

Maybe. Maybe. Or maybe not.

* * *

Food, maybe. Sustenance. A good battle. Information about herself —— no, that’s too cheap. Meaningless.

She tried to remember the stories Molly told her about lovers who would gift each other things which reminded them of the other. A woman giving her beloved a gem that reminded her of her eyes. Was the place to begin with the things she liked about her?

Yasha liked many things in regards to Beau. Admired many things. She liked watching her. She liked touching her.

She liked how honest she was, how it was impossible to think she was lying for even a moment. She liked how giving she was, how selfless. She liked how focused she was.

She liked the way that Beau said her name. “Yasha,” slow and considering, a calling, exactly like that, and Yasha looked up from her hands almost too quickly, pulled from staring at the raw, burned, wet look that Beau’s knuckles had after their battle with Vokodo.

“You’re still hurt,” the words felt unwieldy and thick in her mouth.

“Ah, these?” Beau flexed her hands, looking at them, the barest flicker of pain flitting across her face, “they’re not so bad. More scars, y’know?”

Yasha reached for her without thinking it through, brushing her fingers against Beau’s skin, gaze focused again. “They look painful,” she said quietly, noting the way that Beau’s forearms tensed and relaxed three times, as if fighting with herself. “I… I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not being much help. With Vokodo.” She felt that same shame she had been carrying around, a blade against her throat. Again. _Again_.

“It wasn’t your fault Yasha,” Beau said, something shifting in her voice. Yasha didn’t want to look at her green eyes —— didn’t want to see that sorrow she saw so clearly after she had nearly killed her.

Yasha shook her head slowly and exhaled, hands beginning to glow a gentle white, and she peeled the pain away. Or tried to. It was selfless and selfish —— she liked touching her. Liked the way that Beau’s face would go ever so slightly softer. She could gorge herself on that expression. Almost wanted to.

Beau’s fingertips brushed against hers as they looked at each other for a moment, before thanking her with a smile.

Gods. It was too distracting to think about the things she liked about Beau when trying to figure out what to give her, and this was a silly plan anyways. She didn’t know if Beau wanted her to court her, didn’t think she could live through her embarrassment if Yasha tried and was refuted.

* * *

She had started collecting things. Absently, shyly, a heavy weight in her bag.

Caduceus saw her pull a tooth from the dinosaur that they had killed. He saw everything, along with Jester, she was certain, but he simply looked at her with a slight smile before turning away and she felt herself flush as she hid the tooth in her pack among her things. It had remained there throughout TravelerCon and she didn’t think about it. Didn’t think about it at all.

The way she didn’t think about feathery wings unfurling from her back. The way she didn’t think about Zuala. The way she didn’t think about Beau, the weight of her in her arms.

It was more fang than tooth, perhaps, weighty and imperfect, groves here and there. She had began to work a hole into its widest part before thinking better and taking it to a jewelry shop in Nicodranas and asking for it to be made into a necklace, ignoring how strangely they looked at her.

She had retrieved it after they returned to Nicodranas to pick up Yeza and Luc and felt mortified at the sight of it and how the jeweler handed it to her with a wrinkled nose. Such a small, paltry thing. A bit ugly, honestly.

“Where did you go?” Caleb asked when she joined the others after being absent for half an hour.

“Nowhere,” she glanced at him and looked away, staring off into middle space, feeling caught. The necklace felt impossibly heavy in her pocket, though the gold chain was delicate. The tooth would lay at Beau’s collarbone, in the lovey divot between.

It was stupid. It was… so stupid.

* * *

Still, things caught her eyes, and she wondered what was a worthy token. A worthy method of courting.

What was worthy of Beau? Wonderful, strong, amazing Beau, who took her breath away.

Well. Not Yasha, that’s for certain.

* * *

Caleb didn’t question her when Yasha said that she would accompany him to purchase some extra paper in Rexxentrum while the others went off to sightsee, for which she was thankful. She and Caleb had a level of understanding with each other that she didn’t have with the others, and he wasn’t one to pry into her business. He shouldn’t be alone on these crowded streets, regardless, not with his enemies lingering so close by and a dinner with Trent Ikkithon on the immediate horizon.

The impulse to remain close to him and to protect him was easy enough to give into. He was small, after all, and while he held immense arcane power it would be aggravatingly easy for someone to physically overwhelm and therefore overpower him. Never mind her ulterior motives.

They walked through the cobblestone streets, the bustling noise around them filling their agreed upon mutual silence. She wondered, at times, if he was resentful or surprised at the way that she was able to read him.

She wondered, at other times, if he was able to read her just as easily.

_Do you love her?_

It would be easy, for him to turn the question on her. And it would be easy for her to answer.

Still, she tried to be subtle about looking around the store while Caleb asked for the stores of arcane paper, looking at beautiful quills and sheafs of paper varying in thickness. She had no actual idea what kind of paper that Beau preferred —— she didn’t even know that there were so many options regarding paper to begin with. It was overwhelming to be standing here, submerged in a smell that she had only previously attributed to the libraries that Caleb and Beau frequented, and trying to figure out what kind of paper Beau stored in her notebook, the type that she was nearly always writing in or referring to.

“Beauregard prefers thicker paper,” Caleb’s voice surprised her enough that she jerked, a tiny movement that he reflexively mirrored, as if to protect himself if she chose to lash out. He wasn’t looking at her, the way that he often didn’t look people directly in the eye, and was instead looking at the rows and rows of paper in front of them. He had paper in his arms, and two quills. “Just thick enough that ink won’t bleed through with how hard she presses. But not the kind that pills, she hates having to brush away bits of parchment as she writes.”

Yasha felt as though she had been caught doing something wrong and didn’t quite know what to say. Or do. Or how to react, other than staring down at Caleb for several moments before looking away quickly, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

“I believe she’d like this one,” he said after a moment, picking up a stack of paper that looked smooth and thick, in the relative way that paper is thick. He didn’t wait for a response before he picked up another stack of that same paper and turned to the shopkeep, speaking in lilting Zemnian and then, after a moment of contemplation, picking up a pure white quill.

“Caleb,” she said as he put his own money on the counter and turned to deposit the pile into her arms. A vague panic was starting to well in her, more because she felt thoroughly bewildered than anything else, “Wait, I can pay for it myself.”

“Think of it as a gift,” Caleb said, patting the top of the pile and looking her in the eye. “Remember what I said, _ja_? You deserve some happiness. Chase it.”

He walked past her and out of the shop before she had a chance to respond, and she was hurrying after him after a few moments of staring at the shopkeep, who looked both amused and annoyed at the stunned look on her face. When she caught up with him, not quite a quarter of the way down the street, she reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Caleb glanced at her, and after a heartbeat his mouth twitched into something of a smile. And that was enough.

* * *

(Perhaps what Caleb had meant by _chase it_ hadn’t been asking one of the spectral cats to deliver the quill to Beau’s room without a note or mention that it was from Yasha, but it _was_ rather convenient and a far less embarrassing way to do it. She mentally thanked him, though she found that she was thanking him for a great deal more than just a far less frightening way to give someone a gift.

When she saw Beau using the quill the next morning, she nearly spilled her morning coffee all over herself.)

And then Molly’s grave was empty and Yasha felt as though the earth was swallowing her, as if she was going to be buried like he was, where she had not been able to save him. Where she had not even been able to lay him to rest.

Beau’s hand in hers was a surprise and an anchor, a boon in the midst of this downpour absent of the steadying presence of thunder. Her throat threatened to close, a noise choking halfway there, at her touch. How gentle it was, how steadying. Yasha wanted to weep, wanted to scream, because Molly’s grave was dead and because Beau was holding her hand, squeezing it, and she squeezed in return.

She committed her touch to memory, covetous and near desperate. The hand that stayed her from falling apart.

* * *

The thing is this: Yasha was in love with Beau. In love the way that she had been with Zuala, though it wasn’t quite the same because those two loves can’t really be compared or equated. In love in a similar way that she had been with Zuala, similar to the way that she would always love Zuala.

She could pinpoint the moment that she had fallen in love with Beau, the moment that she had known she was lost. As if she could ever forget.

When Beau, who had been plagued and terrorized by the memories of her home town, had straightened her shoulders walking up the lane. When she had taken a deep breath and knocked on the door. Even when taken apart, bit by bit, brick by brick, when converted into the most vulnerable state that Yasha had ever seen her, she still held herself tall. Still stared her father in the face and spoke to him, until she couldn’t, and she still did it all the same. It was bravery the likes that Yasha had never seen. Strength of which she couldn’t help but love with startling absolution.

 _I see you_ , she wanted to say. _I still see you, and you are wonderful_.

But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. The way she could not and would not give Thoreau Lionett the punch his face sorely deserved —— that was Beau’s right, if anyone’s.

So, she threatened him instead, and wished that was enough.

Yasha loved her. Loved her tirelessly and utterly, loved her and every last part of her, every flaw and every virtue, every last scar on her body and the expanses between. Loved her and pleaded for nothing but her happiness, but her safety, but her security. At all costs.

She loved Beauregard Lionett. And it was terrifying.

* * *

Molly’s body being missing startled something in her. Vines snapped, heart stirring —— he was gone but Beau was there and Yasha could imagine him in her mind, telling her to _do something, anything at all_. To go for it.

She found she couldn’t go for it, but.

Maybe she was approaching this all wrong. Why did Yasha have to default to pretty trinkets or a necklace with a pendant of a dinosaur tooth, which spoke far too strongly of romance? She didn’t want to overwhelm Beau, or frighten her, or accidentally place expectations that Beau didn’t want to meet and would, therefore, begin to resent Yasha.

Beau deserved pretty things, but practical things, like the quill, were less terrifying to start with.

Putting fresh paper, the one that Caleb had chosen, into her bag when she wasn’t looking, because Beau constantly needed paper. Asking Caduceus, who looked at her with far too knowing eyes constantly, to brew some tea and leaving it outside of Beau’s door with a knock, before fleeing. Tending to Beau’s bo staff for her, ensuring that it was still strong and well maintained, noticing where there were divots and dents. When they were in the tower, asking the cats to bring her treats whenever Yasha was reasonably sure that Beau was, once again, working late into the night.

Writing her a letter, because Jester suggested a poem but the poem wasn’t the best and it wasn’t written from the heart, besides, and if Yasha was going to give Beau anything in her own writing it might as well be from the heart. But without mention of the fact that she was, quite egregiously, in love with her.

Sleeping on the outside perimeter of the dome in the frigid north, giving space for Beau to sleep as near to the fire as possible. Adjusting the blanket laying over her when it was Yasha’s turn to watch and Beau still slept, though she tried to do so surreptitiously, to avoid any knowing glances from anyone else. Watching after her in battle and lingering close when possible, enthusiastically saying _yes_ when Beau, of all things, asked her on a date.

A _date_. With her. With romantic intentions —— it seemed impossible and improbable and there was hesitant happiness and then.

Then there was Lucien and the abject terror of him somehow using Beau against her. Lucien was not Molly but he had Molly’s face and voice and sharp eyes and Yasha felt acutely seen by him in the way that she had felt seen by Mollymauk and she couldn’t bear it if he _knew_. If he knew and lorded it over her, held it over her head, she had to protect Beau from… what?

She didn’t know what. She just knew that she _had_ to.

Yasha was not as brave as Beau was. Not by a long shot. But she could protect her. She could protect all of them, or die trying. Was that enough to give? Would it ever be enough?

It was hard, anyways, to focus on gifts and dates when the end of the world was looming.

* * *

It was hard, until Caleb pushed her into the tower with the promise of a date and ——

Well. Yasha hadn’t intended to tell Beau that she loved her, but she felt so disarmed and overwhelmed and irrevocably in love that it felt like a moment for honesty, even when it felt as though her heart was about to burst out of her chest. And it had occurred to her, as she was saying the words, that this truth was immense and terrifying but that Beau deserved to know. That Yasha had to tell her, if they were walking into sure death. That Beau had to realize that there were no expectations and that was okay, but Yasha loved her, and would fight loving her, and would die loving her.

It was a paltry gift, not worthy of Beau and her entirety, hardly better than her heart written on paper but she gave it to her anyways, and tried to embody the bravery that Yasha had fallen in love with.

Then there were ninjas and dogs and a hot tub and, easily, one of the best nights of her life.

* * *

It was hard to tell what time it was in the tower, but Yasha was confident that she hadn’t slept the entirety of the night, yet. A handful of hours, at most, before wakefulness settled over her mind and she was aware of the soft bed beneath her moving —— if she had forgotten what happened mere hours ago (she hadn’t) it was fairly obvious from the fact that she was sleeping on a bed.

Her eyes opened and she saw the line of Beau’s back beyond the expanse of the rich blue sheets and Yasha watched her crouch down, enjoying the shift of her musculature with her own head half pressed into the pillows. She felt pleasantly lethargic, a quiet happiness unfurling inside of her chest, watching Beau rifle through something. Her hair was down from where Yasha had untied it not so long ago, wanting to run her fingers through the dark waves.

Yasha’s heart felt full, and then tripped as she realized what Beau was looking through and she pushed herself onto her elbow as Beau straightened, holding something in her hand.

“Uh,” Yasha said, speaking too loudly per usual as Beau turned, and Yasha was briefly distracted by the fact that she was naked. As if she hadn’t already known that and was, in fact, the reason that Beau was naked, and she hadn’t been watching her for at _least_ half of a minute. “Hi,” she finished, lamely.

“Hey,” Beau said, looking embarrassed, making an aborted movement as though she was trying to hide something.

Something being the necklace in her hand, with a single dinosaur’s tooth as a pendant. Yasha stared at it for several long moments before looking into Beau’s eyes.

“That’s,” Yasha started.

“Sorry it was,” Beau said and then paused after hearing Yasha speak, conscientious of her as always. When Yasha remained quiet, she continued, “it had fallen out of your pouch and I noticed it and wondered what it was. I swear I wasn’t looking through your things.”

“Right,” Yasha glanced away, feeling thoroughly embarrassed by the mere sight of the necklace. How utterly stupid it seemed, now. “I… I know it’s kind of silly.”

“I’ve never seen you wear it,” Beau’s knee was on the bed and when Yasha looked at her again, she was looking at the necklace, “it’d look pretty badass on you.”

“It’s not for me,” their eyes met again and Yasha’s hand clenched around her own wrist as she sat up completely, sheets pooling around her waist. Beau’s eyes straying to her chest for a moment was gratifying, at least. “I… got it made for you.”

There was that look again: that softened, almost shocked look that widened her eyes and parted her mouth just barely that Beau got whenever Yasha healed her, when she told her she loved her, and now. Yasha loved that look, wanted to be the cause of that expression for the rest of time, wanted to see Beau’s eyebrows raise _just so_ again and again.

But the silence was nearly painful.

“I know it was stupid,” Yasha said, hand wringing around her wrist and she gnawed on her bottom lip, brows furrowed and shoulders tense. Her ears were hot. “It’s… it’s not the best gift, I know. I thought about giving you nice books and bracers and jewelry but it all felt so silly and then there was the dinosaur and I thought maybe you’d like a cool tooth necklace but then the jeweler looked at me weird and I realized it was a very weird courting gift ——”

Beau’s hand closed around hers, stopping her from rubbing her wrist raw and Yasha looked at her again. Still that same look, and she wondered for a moment if it wasn’t stupid, after all. “You wanted to give me a courting gift?” spoken softly. So softly. _You wrote me a poem?_

Yasha swallowed, “Yes.”

“Yasha I,” Beau pulled Yasha’s arms apart. The cord of the dinosaur tooth necklace pressed against her skin as they sat, knee to knee, “I love it. I’d love anything you give me but I _love_ this,” she shook the hand that was holding the necklace, and shook Yasha’s arm as a result.

“Really?”

“Really,” Beau leaned forward and kissed her, and Yasha didn’t think that she would ever get tired of kissing Beau. Feeling the press of her mouth, the way that she couldn’t help but smile. This kiss, however, was brief and not one that Yasha could melt into, as Beau leaned away and then turned Yasha’s palm up, depositing the gift into it. “Put it on for me?”

“Of course,” Yasha said, and she fumbled with putting it on, grinning at Beau who grinned back, but when the clasp latched she felt incandescently happy. The tooth did sit perfectly between Beau’s collar bones, and she couldn’t help but trace one, because she was allowed to touch.

It was wondrous, that she was allowed to touch her in this way.

They kissed again, and Yasha combed her fingers through Beau’s hair and Beau held her jaw so carefully, as if she were something precious. They lost some time, ended up lying on the bed, legs entangled, kissing slowly and quite luxuriously. Contentment blanketing them as Yasha laughed when Beau traced her slightly pointed ear, down to her neck, to her back, where a scar was set against her shoulder blade.

Sometime later, Beau leaned back and said, quietly, “I actually got you something, too.”

“What?”

Beau pressed her thumb against Yasha’s chin for a moment, smile widening as Yasha took her hand and kissed the back of it, where that red eye stood bold against her skin. They would have to talk about that, soon, or Yasha would have to ask about that soon —— but not now. Not yet. This felt like an impossible liminal space, and it felt fragile and breakable.

Here, she could smile bemusedly as Beau twisted off the bed again, always in motion and always so gorgeously fluid, and started digging through her own things. “I got it from that display case that you were looking at, a while ago,” Beau said as she turned around, holding a small box in her hand and Yasha felt her breath hitch, for a moment. “Because Jester was right, this would look amazing in your hair and I know that you like beautiful things, even if you don’t think you are beautiful —— which you are, you know,” and she was opening the box and, lo and behold, there laid the pretty floral hair cuff. Silver and gleaming in the low light of the room, the sort of beautiful that Yasha never felt that she could embody nor wear. “I knew you’d never buy it for yourself but it looked like you were eyeing it and I just… wanted to get it for you.”

“Beau,” her voice was oddly hushed as she reached out to touch it gently, staring at it, transfixed, before looking up at her. Beau was watching her, guarded and wondering, and Yasha felt her heart tremble. “I was… actually looking at something for _you_ , in there,” she couldn’t keep the helpless laugh out of her voice as Beau’s brows rose, bemused. “But I did like this and I love that you got it for me and,” Yasha paused, breathing, placing a hand on Beau’s knee. She felt luminous with love, were that possible. “Thank you, Beau.”

“No, thank you,” Beau was close enough that Yasha could feel her chest rumble with the statement and she leaned forward, pressing a kiss over her heart, overflowing with affection.

“Help me put it on?”

“Of course.”

Yasha watched as Beau chose a section of her hair not directly framing her face and began to braid it, starting to braid the cuff into it, feeding the white—black—white hair through.

“Wait,” Beau said, looking distracted as she vaulted over the bed, snagging at the band of deep blue fabric that she used to tie her own hair. “Sword,” Yasha wondered if she should respond, but it appeared as though Beau was talking to herself as she crossed the room to where Yasha had set her swords, cutting the long strip of fabric nearly in half.

“Beau?” Yasha wasn’t entirely certain what was happening, even as Beau climbed back onto the bed and reached for her hair again.

“Right,” Beau looked sharper, less distracted, and the fabric was soft against her shoulder. “I wanted to… braid some of this into your hair, if that was okay? Kind of like a favor, which I know is sort of archaic but I thought it’d look nice and ——”

“ _Yes_ ,” Yasha said it as though it were a promise, as though she were confirming a promise. “You… you can do whatever you want, Beau.”

“Oh?” there was a definite flirtatious lilt to that syllable and Yasha laughed, setting her hands on Beau’s hips, but sitting patiently as she rebraided Yasha’s hair, twining the fabric into it and the cuff as she went.

When she was done, Yasha kissed her and touched the dinosaur’s tooth at her collarbone and felt, all at once, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed and at risk of burning up, burning out, uncertain what there was to say but knowing that there was an infinite number of things to be said, emotions welling in her chest as she kissed Beau with an edge of desperation, wanting her. Adoring her. Heart aching for her.

“I love you,” is what she settled on, hands low on Beau’s back.

“I love you, too,” was returned, choked and devastating, fingers tracing along her spine.

Yasha swallowed, and rolled them so that she was on top, kissing Beau with single minded intent.

They lost time, again.

It’s alright. They had until morning, after all. They had the rest of their lives, and Yasha was determined that their lives, let alone their life together, would not end quite so soon.

There were flowers to deliver, and someone to introduce Beau to, and gifts to give her, after all.

Yasha wondered, as she glanced up at Beau whose head was thrown back and mouth split with pleasure, tooth pendant lying on the hollow of her neck, if a white feather would look nice, tied into Beau’s hair. If Beau would like it.

She resolved to ask her later. Much later.

**Author's Note:**

> if you love beauyasha, feel free to follow me on [tumblr](http://nydorins.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/widowgast)!


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